Environmental Biology and Ecology
Course Number: 12-353
Profound changes are affecting our environment, including climate change, habitat loss, pollution, and invasive species. Understanding ecosystems and their inhabitants and functions is critical to engineering a sustainable future for humans.
This course is an introduction to ecology and biology for environmental engineers. Ecology topics include the relationships among organisms and between organisms and their environment; and adaptations, populations, communities, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Biology subjects will focus on microbiology, as bacteria are an analog for more-complex species. Microbiology topics include biological molecules, biochemical reactions, energetics, diversity of microbial metabolism, physiology, biofilms, biogeochemical cycles, and the degradation of pollutants.
(Offered starting in Spring 2023)
Semester(s): Spring